Chapter 7 - The Choice at the Divide
The news hung in the cold mountain air like a physical blow. Cole stood up slowly, closing the leather satchel with a sharp snap that echoed across the clearing. The margin for error had just vanished. If Vance’s men—backed by a corrupt federal warrant—caught them in the high camp, not only would the ledgers be seized and destroyed, but Tall Hawk’s people would be dragged into a bloody, unequal conflict that the local military would use as an excuse for total annihilation.
"How long do we have before they reach the split?" Cole asked, his mind calculating distances, terrain, and the weight of their horses.
"Maybe two hours if they push their mounts hard through the shale," Tall Hawk replied, his dark eyes fixed intently on Cole. "They think we are cornered up here. They think you will try to run deeper into the peaks where the snow line will slow you down."
"Then we give them what they're looking for," Cole said deliberately. "Or at least, part of it."
Tomas dropped his tin cup, the remaining tea splashing dark against the gray dirt. "Have you lost your mind, Captain? You just spent the whole night explaining why those books are our only protection, and now you want to hand them over?"
"Not the books, Tomas," Cole said, stepping toward the old clerk and pulling a single, thick sheaf of financial drafts and bank authorizations from the satchel. He folded the papers neatly and slid them inside his inner coat pocket. "Just the decoy ledger—the old supply manifests from two years ago. It has enough official stamps to look like the real archive, but it doesn't contain the syndicate's current banking numbers in St. Louis."
Tall Hawk watched Cole with a slow, appraising glint in his eye. "You mean to split your forces. You'll take the decoy and lead them away from the camp, while Tomas stays here with the true records."
"No," Tomas interrupted fiercely, standing up with a surprising surge of energy. "I didn't come all this way to sit in a cave while you play target practice with hired killers, Cole. If you ride down that ridge, I'm going with you. My name is on those manifests too; I helped log them. They know I'm part of it."
Cole looked at the old man, seeing the stubborn courage burning beneath the fear. There was no arguing with Tomas now; the clerk had crossed a line from which there was no turning back.
"All right," Cole conceded quietly. "We ride down to the old copper mine at the middle fork. It’s narrow, defensible, and it gives us a clear line of sight back down the trail. Tall Hawk, I need your scouts to hold the high ridge above the gorge. If the marshals try to flank us from above, drop boulders to block the trail, but don't engage unless they open fire first. I don't want a massacre on this mountain."
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Tall Hawk nodded once, a gesture of absolute respect. "The rocks belong to us, Cole. Go meet your ghosts."
Ten minutes later, Cole and Tomas were mounted and heading down the steep, treacherous switchback trail, leaving the main Apache camp hidden safely behind the towering granite walls of the upper canyon. The wind whistled through the pines, carrying the distant, chilling echo of iron-shod hooves climbing the lower pass.
